Lie Down in Darkness
by UESider84
Summary: "Sometimes, bad things happen and darkness descends." A/U. Karley. R&R, please?
1. Prologue: Darkness

Marley Rose is in the passenger seat of a brand new Maserati hurtling down the 405 at 60 miles per hour. She looks out the window and watches as the Hollywood Hills turn into mountains before her eyes. The larger they become, the more uncomfortable she feels. She presses a button that she thinks will lower one of the windows, but the car goes into lock down mode instead.

She sighs and looks at the blonde haired driver. She's calm and collected. Her eyes are staring straight down ahead. It seems to Marley that she is ten steps ahead of everyone, but that's not true. Kitty Wilde is just a really good driver and a Maserati always seems to demand the best of drivers.

"You can slow down," Marley says quietly. "You don't have to go this fast."

"We have to get you there," Kitty says laconically.

"You don't have to," Marley sighs. "Like I told Dr. Harrison, I could take the train to the hospital."

"And throw yourself underneath it when that woman starts chasing you? I don't think so."

Marley leans back in the seat and closes her eyes. She hasn't slept in days. She just wants everything to go away, but her eyes snap open as soon as she closes them. She can't help thinking that there is a third person in the car watching her. She thinks she feels a cold hand on her shoulder. She wants to scream, but she holds it inside. She's better than this. She won't allow herself to be controlled by that thing that has been chasing her around campus for the last three days. Whatever it is.

"She already thinks you're crazy," a voice whispers inside her head. "She thinks you're a cunt."

"Go away," Marley mouths. "You're not real. Just go away."

"Oh," the voice snarls. "Why should I leave you alone? I love torturing you."

"Please," Marley begs. "Just leave me alone."

"Are you okay, Marley?" Kitty is looking at her. Her angry face is suddenly flushed with concern.

"I'm fine," Marley nods. "It's nothing."

"Come on," the voice urges her. "Open the fucking door and throw yourself out on the freeway."

"No," Marley replies. "Not gonna happen. I'm going to the hospital."

"And what do you think is going to happen when you get there, huh? They'll just strap you to a bed. Just get it over and done with now."

"I won't."

"Of course, you won't. You're a coward. You have always been a coward."

"I'm not a coward."

"Of course, you are. You wanted to ask Ryder out, but you never did."

"He didn't want me."

"Oh really?"

"Yes, really."

She hates it when that voice speaks to her. She wants to tell Kitty about her, but she doesn't know how she'll react. She knows about the woman with the bloody dagger, but this? She already probably thinks that Marley is crazy. What will she think when Crazy Marley tells her that she hears voices, too?

She looks out the window. The posh shops tell her that they're in Beverly Hills. She has never been there before. She's heard about it, of course. She's watched Pretty Woman at least a hundred times, but the shops with their shiny, translucent windows and the golden letters over their doors only make them seem more surreal. Many of the girls at her college shop here. Just two days ago, Kitty came back with six inch Louboutin heels and a new Prada purse.

Marley wishes that she had that kind of money, but she never has. All of her clothes are from second hand shops, her textbooks are from online warehouses and dog-eared to bits, and her iPod is so old that the screen refuses to function and she never knows whether she will be listening to U2 or Mozart or Black Sabbath.

She watches as Kitty maneuvers the car towards a parkade attached to a grey cement building. She drives the Maserati to the roof and parks in one of the corners. "I hate parkades," she rolls her eyes. "Come on, Marley."

Marley doesn't move.

"Come on," Kitty urges her.

"I…"

"You want help, don't you?" Kitty asks.

"Yeah. Except…"

"Don't pull that crap on me," the blonde snaps. "There's a bed in that hospital with your name on it and I'll be damned if you decide to freak out on me now."

She gets out of the car realizing that she can't argue. She puts one foot in front of the other.

"Come on," Kitty urges her. "I have dinner with my dad at Sur at four. I can't be here all day."

* * *

_A/N: Continue?_


	2. 1: Elements of Life

Hell is an emergency room, Marley thinks. She has been sitting on this gurney for four hours and there is commotion everywhere. The phones at the nurse's station ring every fifteen seconds, someone is always being wheeled in, doctors and nurses are running around everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Someone is always screaming for help, someone seems to be dying. There is a woman who is wheeling a large cart that contains things that make her want to vomit. She's pretty sure she knows what they are, but she can't bring herself to ask.

She knows that this isn't normal. No emergency room is normal because every emergency is different. There is a squat Latina woman who keeps wringing her hands and pacing the halls. Her daughter is in the room across from Marley's gurney and keeps making blood curdling screams. "Are you a nurse?" her mother asks every uniformed person that passes through the hallway. "If you are, please help my daughter."

Marley doesn't speak to anyone. She tries to sleep or read one of the textbooks that she brought in her book bag, but there is always something that interrupts her reading. Two minutes ago, it was the girl's screams in the room across from her and then it was that woman with that cart who passed by for the hundredth time.

She wishes that she could slap herself awake, but she knows that she isn't dreaming. Everything is too raw and real. The blood on the doctors' plastic gloves is the color autumn leaves, the nurses' gowns are the color of spring time roses.

She leans her head back against the wall. She has a test in Latin four days from now. There's a paper in her Renaissance literature class that is due in a week and she hasn't even started.

Even worse, there's the hospital bill that she'll have to pay when she gets out of this hell hole. The university's health care plan only covers overnight stays, but what if she's here for a week or more? Her mother can barely pay the rent for the lot on which their trailer is sitting back in Lima and she doesn't have any rich relatives that can fork over a few thousand dollars.

She turns to her right and sees Kitty. She's holding a white paper bag in her right hand and some plastic cutlery in her left.

"Here," she says as she puts the bag on the gurney. "Eat. You're going to be here for a while."

"How did you get in?" Marley asks in disbelief.

"Don't worry about it."

"No. Seriously. How did they let you in here?"

"I told the nurse I was your sister."

"My what?"

"Your step-sister," Kitty rolls her eyes. "She is so stupid she had to believe me."

Marley laughs as the blonde pulls out a small plastic container from the bag and places it on her lap.

"What is this?" Marley asks.

"_Chevre chaud," _the French rolls off of Kitty's tongue as if it is her first language.

"Chevre what?"

"Hot salad," Kitty translates. "It was the cheapest thing on the menu."

"Thanks," Marley winces as she puts a block of sheep cheese in her mouth. "It's divine. Do you want some?"

"I'm stuffed," Kitty replies. "My dad ordered everything on the menu."

"Your dad sounds nice," Marley smiles. "I'd like to meet him."

"He's only nice when he wants to be."

"Oh. I'm…"

"Forget it," Kitty nods the brunette's apology away.

Marley finishes the salad, but she can't seem to hold it down. She runs to the nearest bathroom and locks herself in. She holds back her hair as she projectile vomits into the stool. When she flushes the toilet, she folds her head in her hands and begins to cry. If only she had listened to her mother and gone to Bowling Green, she never would have been in this mess to begin with.

She rocks herself back and forth as the tears sting her cheeks. If her mother was here, she would hold her tight against her bosom and allow her to cry. She'd take one of her large paws and smooth down her long brown hair. "There, there," Mrs. Rose would whisper in Marley's ear. "There, there."

Life was much simpler in Lima, she thinks. She felt like she belonged there. Everyone knew who she was. The local paper interviewed her when she graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class. Almost the entire town came when Mrs. Rose threw her a graduation party. Everything was different here in Los Angeles and much more complex.

Two months ago, Marley had gone to the English department lounge to eat her lunch. She had pulled out the egg and cheese sandwich from the brown paper bag and had begun chomping on it when she saw one of the professors emerge from her office. She stood in the middle of her threshold with crossed arms and stared at Marley until she put the half eaten pastrami sandwich on the rosewood desk. "Do you even belong here?" the curly-headed middle aged woman asked. "Or did you walk in on from the street and decide to eat your lunch here because nobody would judge you for those horrendous jeans?"

She never ate in the English department lounge again. She went to the theology lounge instead where nobody cared what clothes you wore as long as you cleaned up after yourself.

It takes her ten minutes to calm down. When she comes out, Kitty is sitting on the gurney texting someone.

"Who are you texting?" Marley asks to make conversation as she sits back down.

"Someone that can help you."

"I'm sorry about earlier," Marley changes the subject. "The salad was great."

"You're sick. I know," Kitty nods. "Don't worry about it."

Marley wonders if Kitty's niceness is an act. Before today, they were just two people who shared an apartment suite together on campus. Marley could count the number of times they had spoken to each other on both her hands.

A doctor comes by with some interns. He asks some questions off a questionnaire and says something to the students about psychiatric emergencies. He moves on.

The hours drag by and nothing changes. Kitty goes to the nurse's station and asks for a psychiatrist, but the nurses tell her that Dr. Epstein is booked up. Kitty keeps texting that mysterious friend that is supposed to help Marley. "Come on," she hears the blonde whisper under her breath. "Just look at your screen."

As late afternoon melts into night, two male nurses ask Kitty to leave. She says that Marley is her sister, but they don't believe her. They tell her that visitors aren't allowed after six pm. Kitty insists that she's not a visitor, but it doesn't work. They call in security and she is escorted out.

Marley is alone again. The woman across the hall is still screaming and the man with the gunshot wound isn't expected to survive the night.

She notices that Kitty has left something on the gurney for her. It's a small slip of paper. "You're in good hands," Kitty has written. "Trust me."

**XOXO**

"Do you remember when the hallucinations started?" a dark haired woman named Dr. Rachel Berry is sitting across from Marley's bed with a large clipboard and a blue pen in her hands. Her voice is calming, Marley thinks, or maybe, it's the meds they put her on last night.

"Six days ago," Marley says quietly. "Actually, seven."

Rachel scribbles something on the clipboard.

"Can you guess why?"

"No." Marley shakes her head. "I don't know."

"Was there anything going on in your personal life that caused this?"

"My personal life?"

"Yeah," Rachel nods. "A break up, a crush, a move, or something?"

"Well, I moved across the country to go to the school of my dreams," Marley begins hesitantly. "But I don't think that it can cause whatever this is."

"Where did you move from?" Rachel asks seemingly ignoring the question.

"Lima, Ohio. You wouldn't know where it is."

"Oh, I know where it is," the therapist's face lights up.

"You do?"

"Yeah," Rachel nods. "I lived there, but it was a long time ago."

She has a million questions that she wants to ask, but she realizes that Dr. Berry isn't here to talk about Ohio and Marley restrains herself as much as she can from asking irrelevant questions.

"Anyway," Dr. Berry looks down at her notes. "You moved out here, went to school, and everything was fine until a week ago?"

"More or less."

"What do you mean?"

"I guess. Things were fine, but they weren't always _fine_. You know?"

"No, I don't."

"Well," Marley sighs. "I don't fit in at school and I sometimes wish that I had never gone there."

"You said it was the school of your dreams," Rachel points out.

"Yes, but I didn't realize that I had to have Louboutin heels, a Gucci handbag, and a million pieces of jewelry."

"Are you on a scholarship?"

"Yes. My mother can barely pay the rent and buy groceries back in Ohio."

"What does your mom do?"

"That's not relevant."

"I'm just trying to help you, Marley," she says calmly.

"She's…" Marley hesitates. "She's the lunch lady at William McKinley High School."

"So, it's just you and your mom and your dad?"

"I never knew him. He left before I was born."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"No. I'm an only child."

"I see… So, do you have any friends here?"

"Not really," Marley nods. "I mean I have people that I know from school, but I don't have anyone that I can talk to."

"What about that girl who was with you in the emergency room two days ago and keeps coming to see you?"

"Kitty's not my friend. She's just my roommate."

"And how do you feel about her?"

"I'm glad that she drove me here and stayed with me, but I don't think of her as a friend."

"Why not?"

"She's mean and bitchy," Marley spits out the words before she can take them back in. "She makes snide comments about my clothes, my mom, my shoes. I just think that she's being nice because she has to be. I'm crazy, right? When you're crazy, people have to be nice to you."

"We don't use that word," Rachel corrects her gently.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Berry. Mentally imbalanced."

"So there's just you, your mom, and Kitty. No one else? A professor? A relative?"

"No."

"When you had your hallucinations," Rachel goes back to her notes, "Did you notice anything about that woman who chased you down University Hall?"

"She wore Victorian clothes," Marley explained. "She had this huge plumed hat with a very thick black veil over her face. Her dress was corseted and had petticoats underneath. She wore these gloves that went all the way to her elbows. She had a dagger in her right hand and it was dripping with blood."

"Your own blood?"

"Maybe," Marley nodded. "I'm not really sure."

"Did you ever see her face?"

"Yes."

"Who did she look like?"

"She looked like… Kitty." She takes a deep breath. "Except she's much taller than Kitty is. She wears these really high heeled shoes."

"Why do you think that girl looks like Kitty?" Rachel asked.

"I don't know," Marley shrugged. "I didn't create her. I didn't ask for her to have Kitty's face."

"Are you attracted to Kitty?" Rachel asks.

"No. I mean I don't know."

"Is she attracted to you?"

"I don't know," Marley stammers. "She's never said anything like that to me."

"Have you ever had an affair with a girl?"

"No." The questions are making Marley nauseous. "I'm sorry, Dr. Berry. I can't talk about this anymore."

"Why not?"

"I feel like I'm going to be sick," the brunette confesses.

**XOXO**

Kitty Wilde is a woman on a mission. Ever since she drove Marley to Cedars Sinai, she has done everything in her power to make sure that everything is fine when her roommate comes back on campus. She has gone from department to department and professor to professor making absolutely sure that her grades will not be impacted by her hospitalization. She phoned the school's insurance company and asked them to forward all of Marley's bills to her father as well as anything else she might incur by her visits to her therapists.

As she sits on her bed in the empty apartment, Kitty can't help wondering why she is helping this girl. The obvious answer is that she is being a Good Samaritan. She saw someone in trouble, she helped her out. That's what Jesus would have done, but there has to be something else there. It's not simple charity that makes her care about Marley. There is something else.

Earlier this school year, Kitty wouldn't have cared about Marley even if you put her at the same lunch table as the brunette. The girl was poor, after all. Her mother worked as a lunch lady. Her father was probably an alcoholic, a drug addict, or both. She couldn't stand the girl's ratty Walmart wardrobe or the leather outfits that she wore from time to time.

Although they shared the same apartment, they had spent the last two months living separate lives. Kitty went to her sorority meetings, got drunk, played strip poker with hot guys until the middle of the night and tried to have the time of her life while Marley sulked in her room and studied for her exams. They had nothing in common. Kitty was Bruno Mars and Christina Aguilera, Marley was Mozart, Beethoven, Sinnead O'Connor, and The Beatles. There wasn't any middle ground.

When Marley had called her, however, Kitty had kicked everything into high gear for her roommate. She didn't care that her father would be pissed when he saw hospital bills that weren't his daughter's. She didn't mind that she would fail her French exam because she had spent the last two afternoons with Marley at the hospital. Marley was in need and need was something that always trumped everything else in Kitty Wilde's life.

She hears the phone ringing and picks up without looking at the ID.

"Kitty, I need to ask you something," it is Marley and she is talking a million miles a minute. "It'll only take a little bit of your time, I swear."

"What's going on?" Kitty asks as she straightens out her pillows so that she would be able to lie there more comfortably.

"I had a session with Dr. Berry today and she asked me something really personal."

"Yeah?"

"She asked me if I was attracted to you."

"Why would she ask you that?"

"Because that woman I saw looked exactly like you."

"Are you attracted to me?" Kitty asks.

"No. Are you attracted to me?"

"Are you kidding me?" Kitty screams. "If I found you attractive, it would be a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance. What do you think I am? Some uniform wearing Catholic schoolgirl that's so horny that she'll fuck the first person she sees?"

"It was just a question," Marley's voice had become soft. "I never meant any harm. I'm sorry."

* * *

_A/N: Here's the proper first chapter. Please let me know what you think in a review._


	3. 2: Adaptation

Marley comes back from the hospital in a week. The first night she accidentally doubles the dose of her anti-psychotic medication. When she wakes up, she feels as if she has been punched in the face. As she walks to class, her vision is blurred and she can only see five feet in front of herself. She doesn't make the same mistake twice, but she still wakes up every morning with that feeling of being punched. Some days, it is better and then there are those days when she can't crawl out of bed because she is tired.

As the days slowly pass one after another, she realizes that there is a cycle to her madness. Placing her feet on the red carpet in her room, she feels drowsy and barely awake. The day moves forward and she gradually improves. Yet as night falls, she feels a listlessness come upon her. She isn't sure where she is or what she's doing. Sometimes, she gives up doing her homework or studying just so that she can take her medication, crawl into bed, and fall asleep.

She barely sees Kitty. When the two of the meet in the common room, they only exchange greetings. They never converse about anything anymore because there are things between them that they are afraid to acknowledge. Marley hopes that someday she will be able to tell Kitty exactly how she feels about her, but that day hasn't come and she doesn't think it ever will.

She still sees Dr. Berry once a week in her office. It is a small darkened room on the fifteenth floor of the hospital. There are some mementoes scattered here and there on the various countertops. Mostly pictures of Dr. Berry as a much younger woman with people that she used to know back in Lima. There are a couple degrees on the walls and some awards that she has received from various Jewish associations. There's also a small autographed photograph of Freud that sits on the table near Marley's armchair, but none of these things say anything about Dr. Berry's personality.

It seems to Marley that she and Dr. Berry are similar in more ways than one. They both come from the same small town in Ohio. They have gone to the same high school. They probably sang in the same show choir and had William Schuester as their teacher, but that's where the similarities end. When they are seated across from each other in that darkened room, one of them is a patient and the other is a medical professional with a doctorate.

One afternoon, Marley appears at her appointment to find that Rachel has rearranged the furniture. The armchairs are reversed so that the doctor will be sitting behind the patient.

"Why?" Marley asks as she stares at the two armchairs.

"I want to try something," Rachel explains as she asks Marley to sit down.

"I…" Marley hesitates. Her palms feel rather clammy.

"Don't worry," Rachel reassures her with a smile. "It's for your own good. Please sit."

Marley sits down and relaxes in the chair as she hears the rustle of Rachel's red skirt behind her.

"What I'm going to do is ask you some questions about your childhood," Rachel explains. "If you want to get over your psychoses, we are going to have to go as deep into your background as we possibly can. The reason why I'm sitting behind you is so that you can be completely honest without censoring anything."

"Okay," Marley takes a deep breath. "Let's do this."

"Do you remember the first time you were attracted to someone of your own sex?"

"Dr. Berry…"

"Just answer the question."

"I don't know," Marley shakes her head. "I honestly don't know."

"Everyone remembers their first, Marley."

"I…" She stops. She feels like she can't breathe.

In her mind's eye, she sees a girl with hazel eyes and long blonde hair wearing a leather jacket walking down the halls of William McKinley High School. She is even more beautiful than Kitty.

"Her name was Liana," Marley begins. "We had several classes together. I'm not really sure how it happened, but I was really drawn to her. She lived in the same part of town as I did. We started going out together. We had sleepovers. We'd sneak into closets at school just so that we could kiss and then her mother found out."

Marley stops. She doesn't want to continue.

"Well?"

"She disappeared," Marley sighs. "Her mother transferred her to another school and I never saw her again."

"Did you and Liana ever have sex?"

"No," Marley shakes her head. "We only kissed and, sometimes, we felt each other's breasts."

"How did her breasts feel?"

"Like feathery pillows," Marley's voice has become very quiet. "She said mine were like sand bags."

"Where did she like to kiss you?"

"On the lips," Marley shrugs.

"Did you ever fantasize about her?"

"Sometimes," she nods her head. "I mean I dreamed about her, but that's all."

"Do you have feelings for Kitty?" Rachel changes the subject.

"I'm not sure, Dr. Berry. I don't understand what you mean by feelings."

"Does she make you feel like your best self?"

"She used to. When she came to visit me at the hospital, I felt I could tell her anything."

"Did you ever tell her about Liana?"

"No. I wanted to, but I never had the chance."

"Why don't you tell her now?"

"Because she doesn't want to hear about it."

The questions continue like this for another fifty minutes. Rachel asks Marley about whether she has pleasured herself and whether her love for Kitty isn't the cause of her hallucinations. The brunette feels her throat becoming dry every time that woman is brought up. She's not sure whether Kitty and that woman are the same person or not. She would like to believe that her condition was caused by misfiring synapses or something else, but Dr. Berry doesn't really accept that as an answer.

"Love and hate are different sides of the same coin, Marley," she says as she sees the brunette off. "Sometimes, the lines between them blend and that which we love can become something hateful."

* * *

Marley walks out of the office and takes the bus back to Berchmans. The sun is already beginning to set. At this time of day, the traffic in Los Angeles always seems to move five feet an hour. More people get on the bus than actually bother to get off. It becomes crowded and stuffy. Various odors make their way into Marley's nostrils and make her feel ill. The bus stops at University Hall and she escapes feeling free as a bird.

She walks hurriedly towards the music building on the other side of campus. It is the only place where she feels like herself. The practice she always uses is at the end of a long, darkened hallway. It doesn't have any windows and is always empty. Even when the rest are occupied.

She opens the door and then flips over the piano stool's cover. She keeps a stash of sheet music there that she sight reads from time to time. She takes out a book by a composer named Philip Glass. She flips through the pages until she finds a piece that she has been practicing ever since she came. It is slow and rippling, but the melody is ravishing. Every time she plays it, Marley imagines that she is dancing in a room filled with light.

As she plays it over and over, she loses herself in the music. She sways from side to side. Her temperature grows higher and higher. She sees herself in that light filled room spinning circles, laughing, dancing. She hears herself laughing and then someone else laughs. It is only then that she sees another woman much shorter than herself spinning circles around her like they do in some ballets. She is beautiful, but she doesn't have a face.

Marley joins the faceless girl as the music builds underneath her fingers. They are waltzing around the room together now. She imagines herself being pulled towards this faceless someone. She stops at the end and the piece is over. The stage in her mind is darkened. There was no other woman. She is completely alone.

She stands up and opens the piano stool's cover only to see a pair of brown eyes peeking through one of the windows.

"Are you a music student?" a young woman dressed completely in leather asks as Marley opens the door for her.

"No," Marley shakes her head. "I just come here to play sometimes."

"You play well," the leather clad woman compliments her. It's clear from the slightly annoyed expression on her face that she doesn't give compliments that often.

"Thanks."

"For Philip Glass," the girl's tone has become sarcastic, "which any idiot with ten fingers can play."

"But that's _Orphee and the Princess_."

"I don't give a fuck if it was Orpheus and his fucking mother," the girl's voice becomes steely. "It's Philip Glass."

"I actually like it," Marley protests.

"So do most people who don't have any brain cells."

"Look," Marley becomes defensive. "You can't just march in here and tell me that my taste in music sucks."

"Oh really?" the girl cocks an eyebrow.

"Yes, really. You're being a bully."

"Psh. I'm not a bully."

"Yes, you are."

Marley throws her jacket on.

"You got some balls," the girl calls after her as she walks out the door. "Most people I know will never call me a bitch to my face."

"Why is that?" Marley turns around curiously and looks at the girl who is smiling.

"Because they're too scared, but I can tell that you aren't and that's a major plus in my book."

"After what I've been through, I'm not scared of anything," Marley freely admits with a smile. "Even a bully that can't stand my taste in music."

"Even a bully who can't stand your taste in music," the girl laughs as she stretches out her hand. "I'm Santana Lopez."

"Marley Rose."

* * *

_A/N: Thank you for the support so far. Please let me know what you thought of this chapter!_


	4. 3: Connections

Marley doesn't know what to make of Santana. The young woman constantly wears a leather jacket, tight fitting tops, and jeans that accentuate her curves. She has snakes tattooed on both of her arms and a butterfly on her left toe. Around her fellow music majors, she acts tough and tells people exactly where they can shove their hideous tastes in clothes, music, and whatever else she happens to dislike at the current moment.

Yet there is another side to the Latina. There are times when she will play the piano for Marley and the tough bitch exterior that she seems to be cultivating melts away. In front of those eighty eight keys and the sleek shine of a Steinway, Santana Lopez becomes unrecognizable. As soon as she begins a Schubert sonata or a Brahms intermezzo, her tense face becomes her peaceful as she closes her eyes and begins to sway to the rhythm.

Her entire body becomes attuned to the music that she is playing. Many times Marley sits in the darkened auditorium and feels it washing over her in waves. Santana is trying to speak to her through someone else's creation, but she only hears everything at face value. She cannot look into the depths because the dark-haired Latina has never told her what it is about this music that speaks to her. She only gives her the messages and thinks that the brunette will be able to decipher them for herself.

One afternoon in late November, the two of them are sitting in a Mexican restaurant close to campus. It is the kind of place that has sombreros and statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe as part of its décor. The food, however, is delicious and the steaming potato burrito in Marley's pale hands is one of the best things she has ever tasted.

It's so mouth wateringly good that she can't restrain herself from ordering a second while Santana is still working her way through a fish taco.

"Don't they have Mexican food in Lima?" Santana asks as she watches Marley stuffing her cheeks with the burrito.

"They do," Marley smiles, "but I don't think that you can call Taco Bell a Mexican restaurant."

"No," Santana laughs. "You can't. I know. I'm Mexican."

"You don't say?" Marley laughs.

"Yo soy Mexicana," Santana sneers as she points at herself. "Or that's what people tell me I am, anyway."

"Has your family always lived in Los Angeles?" Marley asks out of curiosity.

"I guess," Santana shrugs. "We were here long before the white people showed up and took all of our land."

"Your land? I thought California belonged to the Indians."

"That's what they teach you in public school," Santana notes sarcastically, "and, yes, some of it was Indian land before the whites showed up, but my ancestors owned large tracts of land here in California that were deeded to them by the royal viceroy in Mexico City."

"How much land did they own?" Marley's eyes grow wide.

"A lot," Santana's reply is laconic. "Not the entire state, of course, but they owned a lot. Then the Forty Niners showed up, squatted on it, and took most of it away. I mean almost all of Los Angeles was owned by a dozen families that settled here in the eighteenth century."

Marley doesn't know what to add to this. She knows very little about California's history. She learned about the Gold Rush in elementary school and she has some knowledge about what happened to the Indians because she watched a movie about Ishi, but this is completely new territory for her. Nobody had ever told her that the land on top of which she and Santana were sitting had actually been owned by the Latina's family centuries before and that it had been taken away when the Americans had swept into the basin after 1849.

She wants to know more, but she hesitates to ask more questions. There is something in the way Santana constantly crosses and re-crosses her arms that tells her to stay away. There is probably too much pain, she thinks, or there might be some unfathomable darkness that she won't be able to plumb. Perhaps, a secret that cannot be talked about simply because it would be better off forgotten.

"You play the piano really well," Marley changes the subject. "You're a different person when you're in front of it."

"I take out all of my anger on the ivories," Santana shrugs. "Believe me, I have every right to be angry."

"Yet you seem so peaceful."

"That's what music does to people. Calms you down, straightens out your nerves, and then you can do whatever the fuck you want. It's like therapy except it's free. Hell, the only money that you ever have to spend is for sheet music and, around here, you can get it dirt cheap if you know where to look."

"I only play what I brought with me from Lima," Marley shrugs. "There's that Philip Glass piece you hate, some Schubert, and some other stuff."

"I love Schubert," Santana's eyes widen. "I've played his music my entire life. I can't get enough of him."

"It's good."

"Are you fucking kidding me, Marley? It's not just great. It's some of the best music ever written."

Santana turns into an evangelical preacher before Marley's eyes. She talks about Schubert for hours. She has recordings at home of every piece he ever wrote. "Music flooded out of him," she explained. "I mean it was like a virtual flood. Once he started writing, he didn't stop until the day he died and music was like therapy for him too."

"Maybe that's why there's so much longing in it," Marley suggests.

"It's not just longing," Santana becomes annoyed. "There's also a lot of sadness in it. Darkness, too."

"He doesn't seem to have had a happy life."

"Ya think? His mother died when he was young, his father hated him because he chose to do what he wanted, he couldn't get married because he was poor, and his friends all left him when he became sick."

"Is your life like that?" Marley asks.

"Not really," the Latina shakes her head. "I mean I grew up in a bad neighborhood, got shit from my parents when I came out, but they approved of me being a music major. My mother said that I could always go to nursing school if it didn't work out. You?"

"My dad left us before I was born. My mom raised me by herself. I don't have any friends and I wish I could come out, but I can't."

"You just came out to me," Santana smiles.

"That's not the same," Marley shakes her head. "You're my friend and I feel safe around you, but there's someone in my life who would burn me like a witch if she knew."

"Your mom?"

"No. My roommate."

"Do you like her?"

"Yes," Marley admits candidly. "I like her a lot. She's a big help to me."

"Why don't you just tell her?" Santana has become very practical. Almost didactic.

"I can't just tell her."

"Why not?"

"She barely talks to me."

"Then get her to talk to you."

"What?"

"Look," Santana leans over the table. "If you really like this girl, you need to put your feelings on the damn table and tell her. If she doesn't want you, that's her loss."

"She's already told me that she doesn't think of me like that. She sees lesbianism as a sin."

"Please," Santana waves it away. "She sees it as a sin because she's never had any. Honestly, that's what I thought until I met my ex."

"How many exes have you had?" Marley cocks her head curiously.

"Enough," Santana shakes her head. "You?"

"I've only had one."

"And?"

"Her mother took her away."

"That sucks," Santana sighs. "Some people just don't get it."

"It's not like we did anything. We were just kissing in a closet when one of the janitors found us. We weren't even full on making out."

"I don't get it," Santana moves her head from side to side. "Other people can do whatever PDA they want wherever the fuck they want and yet we're always the ones that get the shaft. It's like we're not acceptable, but everyone else is."

"My therapist says that love and hate are two sides of the same coin."

"Your therapist?" Santana laughs.

"Yes," Marley's voice is matter of fact and quiet. "I've been seeing her for over a month. She's very good."

Marley doesn't know why it makes Santana giggle even harder. Doesn't everyone go to a therapist when they have mental problems? Isn't it common to ask someone else to help you out when you need it? She doesn't get angry as she watches her friend becoming convulsed in hysterics. She understands that there are some people who simply cannot accept that sometimes help is the only thing that another person needs.

Marley's become stony and Santana stops laughing. "I'm sorry," she says without a whiff of sarcasm. "I just don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"How you can go and spend one hour a week in the office of a complete stranger?"

"I have problems."

"What kind of problems?"

"I had a psychotic break," Marley says in a whisper so that nobody else can hear.

Santana inspects her finger nails for a moment.

"A psychotic break," she repeats.

"Yes."

"Did they pump you full of meds?" the dark-haired girl's eyebrows rise in concern.

"Yes. I'm on an anti-psychotic right now. I hate it, but I can't stop taking it."

"Of course, you can. Just take the pills and flush them down the toilet."

"I can't," Marley sets her jaw. "If I don't take them… I could be dead."

"Dead?"

"Dead."

They sit quietly for a few minutes and then walk towards the campus together. Santana stares at the ground the entire time. She doesn't say anything. Marley just vacantly stares at the houses and cars in the surrounding neighborhood. Somewhere out there, someone has turned up a stereo so that the entire block can hear their horrid taste in Ke$ha.

They reach Marley's dorm and Santana looks at her for a moment. "Be safe," she says as she squeezes Marley's hand. "If you need anything, call me."

Marley hurries up the stairs to her room and finds Kitty sprawled on the couch reading her chemistry textbook. As soon as she enters, the blonde looks up and stares right through her.

"Hi," Marley says as she opens the door to her room and drops her purse on the bed.

"I don't like your new friend," Kitty spits.

"I'm sorry?" Marley says as she comes back in.

The blonde is serious. Her cheeks are rose red.

"I don't like your new friend," Kitty repeats.

"Why?" Marley asks. "You don't even know her."

"She has tattoos," Kitty points out.

"That's it?"

"No. She's a bad influence on you."

"I just listen to music with her and we go out to eat sometimes, Kitty. How can she be a bad influence?"

"Are you stupid?" Kitty asks. "Don't you know that Santana Lopez has a reputation at this school?"

"A reputation?" Marley's eyes widen.

"Yes," Kitty nods. "She takes advantage of girls in delicate situations and dumps them when she's had enough."

"Kitty, she's just a friend."

"Just a friend?" Kitty laughs. "She's not just a friend. I saw the way she looked at you when the two of you were walking down the quad earlier this afternoon. She's a predator, Marley. Just stay the fuck away from her."

"Why do you care?" Marley asks stubbornly. "Until today, you never said anything about her. You didn't even talk to me."

"Just stay away from her," Kitty repeats.


End file.
